Who changed history in 2013?

By Frida Ghitis

Updated 12:47 PM ET, Tue December 24, 2013

Pope Francis' first year 13 photos

Pope Francis' first year – Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected the Roman Catholic Church's 266th Pope on March 13, 2013. The first pontiff from Latin America was also the first to take the name Francis. It was a sign of maverick moves to come.

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Pope Francis' first year 13 photos

Pope Francis' first year – Pope Francis at the reception desk of the Domus Internationalis Paulus VI residence, where he paid the bill for his stay during the conclave that would elect him leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics.

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Pope Francis' first year 13 photos

Pope Francis' first year – Pope Francis embraced a young boy with cerebral palsy in March 2013, a gesture that many took as a heartwarming token of his self-stated desire to "be close to the people."

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Pope Francis' first year 13 photos

Pope Francis' first year – Pope Francis washes the feet of juvenile offenders, including Muslim women, as part of Holy Thursday rituals in March 2013. The act commemorates Jesus' washing of the Apostles' feet during the Last Supper.

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Pope Francis' first year 13 photos

Pope Francis' first year – Crowds swarmed Pope Francis last July as he made his way through World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. According to the Vatican, 1 million people turned out to see the Pope.

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Pope Francis' first year 13 photos

Pope Francis' first year – During an impromptu press conference on the plane from Brazil to Rome, the Pope uttered five now-famous words about gay priests: "Who am I to judge?" Many saw the move as the opening of a more tolerant era in the church.

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Pope Francis' first year 13 photos

Pope Francis' first year – In August, Pope Francis and Italian teens took what is likely the first papal selfie, another indication of the Pope's down-to-earth charm.

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Pope Francis' first year 13 photos

Pope Francis' first year – Pope Francis has eschewed fancy cars, instead choosing to drive a white Renault 4L. And he told priests and bishops to do the same.

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Pope Francis' first year 13 photos

Pope Francis' first year – Pope Francis embraced Vinicio Riva, a man with a rare skin disease, in November. The images went viral, with even atheists expressing admiration for the gesture.

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Pope Francis' first year 13 photos

Pope Francis' first year – Pope Francis marked his 77th birthday on December 17 by hosting homeless men to a Mass and a meal at the Vatican. One of the men brought his dog.

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Pope Francis' first year 13 photos

Pope Francis' first year – Pope Francis jokes with members of the Rainbow Association, which uses clown therapy in hospitals, nursing homes and orphanages. Many Catholics saw this image as the joyful flip side of Francis' embrace of the disfigured man.

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Pope Francis' first year 13 photos

Pope Francis' first year – In December, Time magazine named Pope Francis its Person of the Year, lauding him as "the people's Pope."

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Pope Francis' first year 13 photos

Pope Francis' first year – In another papal first, Pope Francis made the cover of Rolling Stone in January. The magazine praised his "obvious humility" and "empathy."

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Story highlights

Frida Ghitis: Some individuals made a huge impact by challenging the status quo

Ghitis: If not for Edward Snowden, we wouldn't know about NSA's massive spying

She says Pope Francis is challenging the mighty forces of Catholic tradition

Ghitis: We are all not just witnesses; we are the protagonists of our own time

Something was different in 2013. Unlike recent years, when some of the major events were powered by groups and movements -- think revolutions that seemed to materialize out of nowhere, public squares occupied without visible leadership -- this year, it was individuals who created the most unexpected or dramatic events.

Some of this year's crucial stories resulted from the interaction of individuals challenging institutions, organizations or the status quo.

Sometimes they failed miserably. Other times, they succeeded. But mostly they gave a shove to history, trying to knock it onto a different path.

These are my candidates for what defined 2013:

Frida Ghitis

The spies got out-spied

Edward Snowden hadn't yet turned 30 when he threw back the curtain, exposing the astonishing scale of surveillance by the National Security Agency. While the NSA had its sights on other things, a single contractor in its midst triggered an earthquake.

Snowden left his NSA job with hundreds of thousands of documents, revealing how the NSA was gobbling up "meta-data," records of telephone calls and e-mails, even from world leaders and U.S. allies.

The revelations showed an almost omnipotent NSA, capable of learning any of our secrets. And yet, it bared an agency that could be embarrassingly bested by a single man.

To some a hero, to others a traitor, Snowden forced an examination of how far society is willing to allow the government to spy on people's lives. If Snowden didn't act, would we have slipped quickly and easily into an Orwellian state without knowing what our government had been doing?

He is challenging the mighty forces of tradition in the Church, wearing a benevolent smile while surely facing murmurs of dissent behind Vatican walls.

The Pope decried the Church's obsession with homosexuality, abortion and birth control, prodding Catholics to fight poverty and inequality instead. He has become an endless source of surprises, phoning his newspaperman to cancel his subscription, paying his hotel bill in person and refusing to move to the papal residence.

Can Pope Francis succeed in bringing lasting changes to one of the world's oldest, most conservative institutions? We will find out.

Struggling Iran pulls a rabbit out of the hat

The dispute with Iran over its nuclear weapons began a new chapter with the surprise election of Hassan Rouhani. The new Iranian President sharply shifted to conciliatory tones, but much doubt remains about whether that will result in real changes. Obama put the odds for a final deal at 50/50.

It is Rouhani's boss, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in Iran. Nothing happens without his approval, not even a change of tone. It is not clear he has decided to change the goals of Iran's nuclear program.

Almost two decades have passed since the United States and other countries started imposing sanctions on Iran, aiming to prevent what they believe -- and Iran denies -- is a nuclear weapons program.

Iran and the Washington-led world powers made an interim deal to slow some of Iran's progress for six months and roll back some sanctions. That created excitement in some quarters and consternation in others, especially because Iran appears to have found a way to continue enriching uranium even though the United Nations had specifically demanded it stop.

Who wins? Some would say Iran, thanks to Rouhani.

Obama scored self-goal with Obamacare rollout

When it comes to individuals challenging the status quo, the President of the United States is not exactly Everyman, but Barack Obama took on the system and then trampled himself in it.

The story might have been the political dysfunction and the government shutdown that left Americans disgusted with Washington. Obama seemed to be scoring points after standing firm against Republicans. What tripped him most painfully required no intervention from his critics. It was the disastrous rollout of the signature achievement of his presidency, the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.

When Americans stopped shaking their heads at the shutdown, they discovered the Obamacare rollout disaster unfolding. Obama's approval rating took a plunge, made steeper by his initial denial that there was a problem.

When a contrite Obama declared "That's on me," he found little disagreement.

In Syria, Obama fumbled and al-Assad stays in power

When 2012 drew to a close, we knew the suffering of the Syrian people was nowhere near its end. Who would have guessed that by the end of 2013, the Syrian regime would be strengthened?

After calling for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down in the face of mounting deaths, Obama, along with much of the West, seemed to have no clear idea what to do next. He worried that the opposition fighting against his dictatorship would give rise to a new regime dominated by Islamist extremists. Obama drew a "red line," saying the use of chemical weapons by al-Assad would change his calculus.

Then al-Assad used chemical weapons, and Obama announced he had decided the United States had to intervene. Obama is not a natural risk-taker. When he decided to take action in Syria, he went out on a limb, but quickly he reversed course, afraid to challenge public opinion. He surprised everyone with the announcement that he would await congressional authorization.

The congressional green light looked doubtful when Secretary of State John Kerry off-handedly suggested intervention could be prevented if al-Assad surrendered his chemical weapons. Syria's ally Russia picked up the idea and launched into a diplomatic offensive that saved al-Assad from Western attack and saved Obama from political shame.

As Russia's Vladimir Putin made his victory lap, the Syrian people continued to endure relentless assault by al-Assad and his Lebanese ally, Hezbollah. The death count has continued to climb, and the winter weather is adding to the misery of Syria's civilians.

Putin outwitted Obama, and another dictator gets the last laugh.

As we look back on 2013, it's worth remembering that we are all not just witnesses; we are the protagonists of our time in history. Individuals can change history, for better or worse.